God Put A Smile Upon Your Face
by namewithheld
Summary: Postrequiem for a third grade ashtray and AU from there. Joan believes God's speaking through Coldplay. WARNING: adult situations, violence. UPDATED! Second Chapter up at long last!
1. Chapter 1

Title: God Put a Smile upon Your Face

A/N: this story is dedicated to Depudor, a fellow fanfiction author on this site, who (tragically) only wrote one Joan of Arcadia story, but was the best one I've ever read: 'Things They Can't See When They Look at Him'. Read it and cry like a baby that Joan and Adam's own creators (the writers, not God) managed to make their unforgettable connection ordinary in the second season. Depudor brought me back to Season one and abruptly interrupted my little obsession with post-Trial & Error stories: let's go back to Eden, when the bad guys were only occasional guest stars. Bad stuff does happen in this story though, so ye be warned: adult situation that is fairly unpleasant but not explicit and of course, Iris is around and that's enough to stick a warning on anything.

Basking in the yellowy morning light, Joan leaned her head sleepily against the car window. She mutely admired the way a thin icing of fresh snow had transformed ugly Arcadia into a city fit to be miniaturized and stuck in a snow globe.

It managed to look both wintry and inviting—but maybe that was just the prospect of seeing Adam adding extra beauty to her outlook.

Adam: his eyes were the first thing that came to mind at the thought of him. Eyes that could express so many different things, contradicting things: devotion and anger, love and frustration. Eyes she'd seen filled with tears and blank with coldness and lit up with joy. Maybe his mouth next…soft, delicate: a sensitive smile, a mischievous curve of his lip, or lips parting in disbelief and wonder. Nose: long and arch, a nose that gave his face something vaguely noble, something to add courage to his other, more humble and loving features.

She remembered his arm slung casually through hers and his sweet, warm breath against her neck as he spoke, when they were so excited about the White Stripes tickets--

The scratchy radio that needed to be fixed had begun to play a Coldplay song Joan (not usually being into them) didn't recognize. But it struck a chord in her chest: _"I've gotta say, I wasted all your time, oh honey, honey…" _

In one bleak moment her light-headed unreasonable joy flipped over into despair and regret from one moaned line from one sad song.

She _had_ wasted his time. By kissing him and rejecting him and telling him she was 'okay' with him and Iris. Okay with it? She was many things about him and Iris but 'okay' sure as hell wasn't one of them. The next lines drifted through to her:

"_Where do I go to fall from grace?  
God put a smile upon your face, yeah"_

"Shut up," Joan snapped at the radio. How typical: God just had to put his two cents in and interrupt her happy Adam daydreams with reality: all this, the state of things, were a direct result of (yeah, you guessed it) _her own choices!_ Free will, got it.

And if there was one thing Joan really hated, it was having no one but herself to blame.

"Um, are you talking to the radio?" Luke asked sarcastically, eyebrows raised as he turned to look at her from the front seat, "and more importantly, are you telling _Coldplay _to shut up?"

His deep disapproval of this was evident.

"I'm telling _you_ to shut up," Joan replied distractedly and predictably, "right _now."_

Luke, shrugging in the passenger seat of Kevin's rinky-dink 'new' used car, retreated back into his chemistry book: he knew some things were a matter of probability, and the chances of him actually getting an answer out of his confusing, evasive and crazy sister were pretty slim.

"Both of you shut up," Kevin commanded with some amusement, "I'm driving you geeks to school, how about some gratitude?"

Luke buried his head deeper into the thick textbook and Joan banged her head against the window in imitation of Adam.

"Or not," Kevin concluded with a weary but still comical shake of the head.

The car slowed to a stop in front of Arcadia High and Joan, with her cheek against the cold of the window, spotted the boy she'd been bitterly obsessing over.

Or, to put it in another way, the boy she was in love with.

Adam held Iris' hand and their arms swung slowly back and forth as they climbed the steps up to the school, both smiling happily. A bright, frighteningly-patterned collar stuck out of his grey hoody. Iris, leaning forward with a giggle and saying something Joan couldn't make out, pushed it neatly back under.

Joan felt physically sick with jealousy.

"_Your guess is as good as mine_

_It's as good as mine_

_It's as good as mine_

_It's as good as mine…"_

"Joan?" said Kevin obliviously from the driver's seat, peering at her through the rear-view mirror, "you gonna get out of the car anytime soon?"

Luke was long gone. Joan sat unmoving, unable to take her eyes off Adam as he leaned his head slightly down to be at eye-level with Baby Voice and said something, his mouth inches from hers: his breath came out in a white cloud. Joan could almost taste it.

"I feel really, really not-good-enough-to-go-school all of a sudden," she told Kevin as she met his eyes in the rear-view mirror with a desperate look.

"You have the use of two working legs;" Kevin replied staunchly, "don't mess with me."

"Got it," Joan sighed and opened the car door with a feeling of intense dread.

"Jane!" said an excited, wonderfully low and melodic voice.

Ah, the source of her dread.

She got out and smiled wanly at Adam as he approached with Iris not far behind him. Kevin was stayed beside her with his engine running. Joan smacked the car twice, like it was a cab and taking the hint, her brother drove off obediently. She'd probably pay for that later.

"Hey, Adam," she greeted him hollowly and then even more reluctantly: "Iris."

Iris had inevitable appeared at 'A''s side, a goofy I'm-in-serious-crush smile on her face and squeaked: "Hi, Jane!"

Joan felt as if Iris had just single-handedly reached into her body, cut her heart out and thrown it on the curb like a useless piece of junk, where it lay between her and Adam, bloody and beating in a very obvious way.

Adam's cheerful look faded instantly. He turned to Iris, his gorgeous eyes turning lighter with pain and quiet anger: he corrected her in silence: Joan, not Jane, not to her.

But Joan was too angry to leave it up to Adam: "Don't even _think_ that's gonna fly," she challenged the smaller girl with a sneer.

Iris glowered back for a moment, but Adam said: "Iris, I should talk to Jane alone," and her face turned troubled, anxious.

"But, A…" she murmured in that grating, girlish way that just made Joan want to strangle her till she lost the ability to speak. It would definitely be an improvement.

"Iris." Adam gave her a gentle but firm and slightly impatient look and she scooted away.

"Wow," Joan remarked sarcastically, "you've got her trained and everything."

Adam said nothing but looked down at his feet in a distinctly unhappy way.

"Sorry," Joan mumbled, regretting the remark a split second after it left her mouth. Sighing, and suddenly noticing the cold and the fact that she had no gloves with her, rubbed her hands together absently.

He looked up, his eyes meeting hers with silent joy, "I made a sale."

Joan's mouth fell open and she forgot the cold: excitement and true satisfaction were hot in her chest and whirling in her stomach. "Oh My God!" she stage-whispered, "that's so awesome!"

Adam nodded, smiling, his shining eyes never leaving hers. "It was such a fluke."

Joan rubbed her hands together again, now in excitement. "Tell me everything!"

Adam opened his mouth, as if about to speak but then his eyes lowered and he looked worried. He stepped much closer, till her soft wistful sigh blew a wisp of white cloud into his face. Wordlessly, he took off his cheap-looking woolen mittens and fit them over her red hands. He didn't meet her eyes. Joan stared at his face, speechless with the sweetness of the gesture.

He looked up somewhat sheepishly and seeing her bright-eyed, tender expression, he mumbled: "your hands looked cold."

Joan nodded furiously, willing the unexpected tears to retreat back behind her eyes. "But now your hands are cold," she murmured back, her voice filled with meaning.

Adam shook his head, indicating it didn't matter. "Anyway…" he whispered, starting to back away from her but keeping his eyes focused on her face as if wishing—

"Wait," Joan cut in with a sudden thought, "don't I get to see it?"

"See what? Oh." He swallowed, his eyes now escaping her gaze nervously, "Uh, it's not really…"

"Oh, come on," Joan whispered playfully, closing the distance between them and catching Adam's reluctant eye. "I don't know art but I could tell you how beautiful I think it is."

Adam smiled and let out a quiet laugh, his eyes seeming to search hers as he gazed upon her, "You haven't seen it yet." Then, quietly: "you might hate it."

Joan touched his arm where it was crossed across his chest, just like she'd done months ago after the cheerleading try-out, before everything went kerflooey. Adam looked down at her hand just like he'd done then, a look of reverence passing over his features, as if her hand was something strange but perfect.

"Everything you make is beautiful," Joan choked out quietly.

Adam's eyes went from her hand to her face, widening and softening at the same time with those contradicting emotions again: shock, love, confusion, worship… He came close again and they were much, much too close but not nearly close enough and his lips were close to hers and his whole body seemed to radiate his longing to kiss—

"A, we're gonna be late for Art!" chirped a voice Joan unfortunately recognized.

Adam concealed whatever reaction he had to the sound by bowing his head and shielding his face from both their view. Then, looking back up, he smiled gently at Jane, not to be rushed: "I'll see you later, okay?"

"Um, yeah, okay," Joan said helplessly as he walked to Iris and followed her as she huffily climbed the steps. How could he just walk away after an almost kiss-moment like that?

Arcadia's snow sparkled around her like a Christmas ornament. Joan stood, confused and longing for a moment, and then the bell rang. She was late.

Six periods and one hour-long detention for being late later, Joan went looking for Adam in the art room. Opening the door, she was it was empty in a glance, but went in anyway, looking for the artwork he was going to sell.

But she didn't see anything Adam-like: the classroom was filled with ordinary, teenage attempts at angst-filled sloppy paintings and wobbly, uncertain clay sculptures. One thing did grab her attention: a sketch. A drawing of Joan herself, in fact.

Confusion and horror reeling inside of her, she picked up the piece of paper and stared at what was depicted on it. It wasn't Adam's usual style at all—more cartoonist—but she dimly recognized the way the eyes were drawn as signature of Adam, and the attention and detail to the smaller, less important features.

It was a cruel exaggeration of Joan's face when she freaked out: she had a double chin; her mouth was in a grotesque pout, her eyes enormous and shiny and two rivers of tears streaming down her cheeks. Her skinny cartoon-character's arms were raised up above its head, holding a folding chair.

Okay, she guessed she deserved it at the time but… She turned the paper over, where the date had been scribbled. Her mouth fell open for the second time that day in response to something Adam said or did. This had been drawn just a couple days ago: she closed her eyes.

Hadn't he forgiven her, then? Ever after his mother's note and—and everything else, all those little almost moments? Had they all been in her head? Those emotions in his eyes, maybe they weren't really there. What made her think he wasn't stupid about Iris now? They were together.

She suddenly wondered if Adam hadn't wanted her to see the piece he was going to sell because it too was some horrible expression of his anger toward her. She remembered his words: _you might hate it. _Well, hadn't she shown him how sorry she was? Weren't they okay now, months later? Apparently not.

"Okay," she said aloud, in a cool voice, and it wasn't till a tear splattered down onto the cartoon's hideous face that she realized she was crying again.

Joan lay awake that night. Her head couldn't stop spinning into ever-growing confusion, panic, fear and pain over Adam. It didn't help that the only appearance God had made that day was in the form of a Coldplay song. It wasn't like him not to pop up at least once. Maybe he'd end up knocking on her bedroom window or something.

Her bedroom window… Joan turned her head, regarding it thoughtfully. She could open it (risking the sound of it waking her light-sleeping Dad on a quiet night like this) go down the drainpipe and brave walking from safe suburbia to Adam's questionable neighborhood, confront him, have a minor emotional breakdown, possibly make him hate her forever (if he didn't already, since he obviously hadn't forgiven her for smashing his art) and be back in time for six solid hours of sleep before her math test tomorrow morning.

She got up soundlessly, throwing a cute jean jacket over her pink flannel pj's and putting Adam's mittens on with a wince of remembrance.

Pausing every five seconds to listen for a sound from her parents' bedroom, Joan safely escaped. Climbing down her drainpipe with some difficulty and walking quickly out into the night, she reflected: she wouldn't have gone to sleep that night anyway.

The Coldplay song was still stuck in Joan's head as she started down the street where Adam lived:

"_Now, when you work it out I'm worse than you  
Yeah, when you work it out I want it too  
Now, when you work out where to draw the line  
Your guess is as good as mine…" _

Suddenly she realized the song wasn't coming from her head: it was outside it, coming from the real world. A car parked to her right had turned on suddenly, softly playing the song just where it had left off in her head, barely audible under the rap music blasting from one of Adam's neighboring houses.

Suspicious that God might be making appearance after all, Joan took a step toward it, to catch a glimpse of anyone 'familiar' in the car.

As she moved suddenly to the side, she narrowly missed a man suddenly coming up behind her. She turned to stare at him, too shocked by his sudden appearance to scream.

By avoiding him, he'd fallen to the curb, obviously drunk.

"_Where do we go, nobody knows  
don't ever say you're on your way down…"_

It gave her an advantage: she saw his weakness (smelled it, too) and the song (_…where do we go…)_ reminded her that she was just a few houses away from the shelter of Adam's house. Not hesitating any longer, she jumped over the man's crumpled body, to run there as fast as she could, but he grabbed hold of her ankle.

Toppling over, she screamed the first word that came to mind: "Adam!"

As if the sound of her voice held some magical hold over him, she heard the wooden door of his shed slam open. She'd slammed it often enough herself to recognize the sound. "Adam!" she cried out again but through her tears, it came out very softly from where she lay writhing beside the car. She kicked back against her attacker's face: hard.

The drunken man somehow climbed over her, his stench—sweat and alcohol—enveloping her and causing Joan to gag in fear and nausea. He managed to roll them onto the road, almost completely concealed by the car that had saved Joan from his first attack a moment ago. His one hand covered her mouth and his other went down between their struggling bodies to his belt buckle. She heard Adam's hurried footsteps and then his voice, calling out her name.

But she could make no noise. And though she bit his sweaty hand fiercely, he kept it covering her mouth, tightening still more. She felt vomit rise to her throat.

Quite suddenly, the Coldplay song kicked up and gained extreme volume: the rap music was completely overshadowed by the incredible loudness of the song as it seemed to scream across the street to Adam in a way that defied stereos:

"_WHERE DO WE GO, NOBODY KNOWS_

_DON'T EVER SAY YOU'RE ON YOUR WAY DOWN_

_WHEN GOD GAVE YOU STYLE AND GAVE YOU GRACE_

_GOD PUT A SMILE UPON YOUR FACE"_

Adam ran to the source of the sound and all Joan could do was listen to his feet pound against the sidewalk and his labored breathing as he defied the laws of physics in speed: her eyes saw nothing, her attacker had pressed her face down, where she was vomiting uncontrollably as he started hastily pulling down her flannel pajama pants.

Then the man was being lifted off her and she heard a yell of rage as someone was pounded against the car. She couldn't help but struggle slightly as she tried to make her shaking body get up into a standing position but she needed to help poor Adam.

But to her amazement, turning, she saw it was her large attacker and not Adam who was shoved against the car: Adam pinned him to it, his face contorted with pain and anger as he rhythmically pounded the bastard's head against it.

Even in her confused state and from the depths of despair and pain and fear, Joan knew she needed to make Adam stop or he would kill the man for trying to—

A part of her, a dark, evil part wanted to remain still and watch him beat the shit out of the man, even kill him, watch as the man felt the same sickening fear she herself was feeling: a part of her thought murder might be justified after feeling him nearly rape her body, the way another man had raped her mother in college.

But a much larger part knew that his punishment was not Adam's to dish out, or even hers. Most of her knew this and most of her knew Adam would end up in much more trouble than the man himself and she, in reality, hesitated less than a split second before shouting breathlessly: "Adam, stop! He's—he's out, we need to, to call the police." She slowly sunk down into a seated position on her knees, unable to stay standing on her shaking legs.

And maybe Adam answered to the same voice of reason inside his soul, or maybe his instinct was to listen to Joan, but he stopped, breathing hard.

He let go of the man, let him drop to the street. He turned to Joan, eyes wide and shining with tears in the darkness of street: "Jane…God, Jane," he mumbled and fell to his knees in front of her, taking her into his arms and holding her, rocking her back and forth in her arms like a child as he whispered into her hair that still smelled of vomit, like a prayer: "Jane, you're okay, you're okay." He willed himself to believe it.

She said nothing, only held onto him for dear life, eyes wide. The radio had turned itself off, she realized dimly.

"Do you—" he paused, pulling away to look at her face, but she wouldn't let him: she clung tightly to his lean, muscled body, inhaled his fresh, smoky scent—she didn't cry, only gasped quietly for air, as if drowning. She felt a thousand different emotions hurtling toward her from a short distance, but she couldn't do anything now but revel in her safety, in her love for Adam.

She barely noticed the throbbing, incessant pain in her head or the strange blur in front of her eyes. She held him, feeling those emotions come closer, sending daggers of revulsion into her stomach.

He buried his face in her neck, unthinkingly kissing her collarbone and the skin behind her ear: "Jane, you need a hospital." But he didn't pull away from her or loosen his grip: if anything, his arms tightened around her as he kept kissing the side of her neck, her hair, every place he his mouth could reach, thanking a merciful God for delivering them, a God he hadn't even known he believed in before this night.

Every kiss filled Joan with warmth, as if Adam's strength was transferable through his lips. She begged him inwardly to never stop, but the…man's…smell was still in her nostrils, her pajama pants were still around her knees, though neither of them had noticed.

"No, Adam, police," she said simply, and lowered her head onto his shoulder while he nodded adamantly against her hair.

"I think that's all, Miss Girardi," said a sympathetic female police officer, smiling at Joan who was nursing a hot cup of coffee in Adam's kitchen. Outside, she could see flashing red-and-blue lights and hear the other officers examining the scene of the crime. The man, her attacker, had been restrained when he came to and they were waiting for an ambulance to pick him up.

She'd just finished asking her a lot routine questions for which they'd sent Adam out of the room and now she leaned slightly toward her, asking her gently: "you plan to press charges against him, I assume?"

Joan nodded blankly, unsure of what she was agreeing to but wanting the man punished.

"I think," The policewoman added carefully, "you might consider talking to someone before you go to the hospital."

"My parents are gonna be here any second," said Joan quietly, "and I don't want a counselor or a hospital. He didn't get a chance to…" she paused, but forced herself to go on: "rape me, I told you that."

"I'm afraid a hospital examination is procedure in such cases," the policewoman replied apologetically but firmly. "Counseling is always recommended. People sometimes blame themselves for things that are in no way their fault. That's one of the reasons I suggest you speak to Adam when you go to the hospital with your parents, Joan."

Joan looked wearily at the policewoman, not having the energy to feel surprise. "I can't do an assignment right now."

God put Her hand over Joan's hand which lay, lifeless, on the kitchen table: she started at the unexpected contact. She didn't really want anyone but Adam to touch her.

"But you need it. A terrible thing happened to you tonight. You acted just as you should have, the best you could under the most awful circumstances, but you're still going to go home hating yourself and believing Adam doesn't truly love you."

Joan burst into tears and laid her head down on the table.

"I have given you," God murmured, her hand over Joan's head where it rested on the table, "the resources, both in your strong, resilient character and in your surroundings, to heal from this experience in time. But you need to reach out and use these resources. You need to allow yourself to be helped."

Joan looked at God, tears streaming down her face. "Why didn't you warn me?"

God sighed deeply, her face etched with sorrow. "I don't interfere in that way, for one thing, however much I may want to" she said and Joan snorted irritably, but continued simply: "and I can't predict the future. This event culminated from a series of events leading up to it. It could've gone another way. I could've told you not to go looking for Adam's piece in the art room. But if I had warned you and you didn't go to Adam's tonight, it would've resulted in another set of circumstances…worse than these."

Joan felt rage come over her in a wave: "Worse than this? Worse than being attacked? If I hadn't come over here tonight, I wouldn't have been a bad neighborhood, with a rapist in it! Things would have been fine!"

God looked doubtful.

"You mean…" Joan looked at her in confusion as her fury fell away: she didn't have the energy to support it and her sadness overwhelmed it anyway. "I would've been attacked anyway."

"There is a window to a world where you didn't find that drawing and you didn't go to Adam's," God said, her voice soft, gentle as she delivered the hard news: "In this world, you would get up tomorrow and go to school early because you needed the extra time to study for your math test. Your attacker, the rapist, would attack you in daylight: sober and at the height of his strength, with Adam nowhere nearby and your parents assuming you were at school, Luke not even having left home yet."

Joan's hands trembled and she cupped her face, as if feeling its shape, as if assuring herself she was in one piece apart from her bruises and bloody nose. "So it was a coincidence that I passed the neighborhood he was in? He—he was planning to come after me anyway?"

"There is no coincidence, Joan."

"Why was he coming after me?"

"You know I can't answer."

Joan sighed deeply: frustration, exhaustion, and pain, sick fear…all these things fought for a hold over her and drained the color from her face. "It was you, wasn't it? In the car, with the song. Adam heard it over that party going on and knew where to find me, the guy didn't get me the first time around so I had a chance to call out to him… You a fan of Coldplay or something?" Her sarcastic edge sounded bitterer than anything else right now.

"You were the one that decided I was trying to guilt trip you this morning with that song, from that obsessive need you have to make everything your fault. I knew you connected it to me, so I used it tonight to get your attention."

Joan nodded resignedly and said softly: "I can't talk to Adam tonight. I'm too tired."

"Well, it's what's recommended," God replied simply, "but of course it's your choice, Miss Girardi."

"What's recommended?" Will wanted to know, coming up from behind her, just as Joan was about to ask why God was addressing her so formally.

God turned to her father and said: "She needs to talk about the attack, at best with Adam Rove as well."

Will frowned at God in confusion. "Adam Rove? And why is that?"

God looked at Joan, eyes soft. "Adam witnessed part of the attack and may be able to get through to her as a third objective party."

"Are you qualified to dispense advice, officer?" Will wanted to know, looking for someone to take his rage out on, even unreasonably. Helen went to hug Joan tightly, ignoring both Will and God. Joan trembled at the contact and Helen, understanding, let her go.

God smiled calmly at him, Her eyes understanding. "Yes, you might say that. I've got to be going. Good luck to you, Joan," She looked over Her shoulder at her, "and I wish you and your family strength in this time of need."

Helen gave Will a pointed look but he already saw his mistake: this woman wasn't the source of this chaos. "Thank you, officer," he said genuinely but with difficulty, and then went to his daughter, as much as it pained him to see her in this state.

"We need you to tell us what happened," he told her quietly.

Joan looked up at him, her eyes red-rimmed and terrified. Will felt his heart break a little more.

"Please, Joan. It's important." Helen now grasped her hand, gripping it tightly, protectively. Dazed, her daughter looked down at her, some disbelief mingled with the pain in her eyes. Shouldn't her mother understand more than anyone?

But Helen looked consumed by her own demons, her fears swallowing her up. She needed Joan to tell her she had not been raped. She needed to know her child hadn't gone through the same as she had: she believed, truly believed that she was protecting her, making sure she was all right, but in reality, it was hell for her reliving the nightmare of the extreme violence done to her in college and the disgusting, horrific rape but it was still worse to think her daughter may have experienced anything remotely similar.

Joan felt strangely disconnected from her in that moment.

"No," said a voice firmly. It was Adam, coming into the kitchen from where he'd been waiting in the living room, his face grim but determined. He came and stood beside Joan, his hand hovering over his shoulder and then dropping to his side. "She needs a hospital. She told me her vision's blurry."

"Adam…" Joan murmured, shaking her head to contradict him and to warn him against disagreeing with her Dad—but the very movement made pain rise to her temples and she rubbed them absently, wincing in pain.

"Does your head hurt?" her Dad asked immediately, his eyes narrowing.

Joan shrugged: everything hurt, everything ached. "Yeah," she said finally. "Yeah, it hurts a little." A fresh wave of pain hit her. "A lot," she admitted.

After the doctor examined her and she'd gotten a CAT scan for her head, Joan lay still on the hospital cot. The room smelled of antiseptic and her own sweat and the combination was enough to bring fresh tears to her eyes. They ran down her face unheeded: there was no one there and somehow just wiping them away seemed too much of an action, too much movement.

The air was still and silent and she made herself as still and quiet as she could, almost holding breath: she didn't want to hear the sound of her own breathing.

She let no sob escape her. She bit her lip and tried to keep her mind from going back to the attack, to what God said in the kitchen—but it seemed inevitable. He'd said the rapist had gone after her on purpose. She felt sick with this knowledge: it festered inside her like a sickness.

It hadn't been random. It hadn't been terrible misfortune, it hadn't been coincidence: she was specifically chosen. Why? What had she done to deserve this? What was it, in her appearance, her personality, her life, that had made someone like that come after her?

Wild thoughts chased themselves across and around her mind till she felt the tightly-coiled knot of panic inside her begin to unravel and she had to shove her fist in her mouth to keep from screaming aloud.

A nurse came in, carrying Joan's clothes and seeing her wretched state; she gave her a deeply compassionate look. It was not pitying, only deeply sad and filled with empathy that was so evident, it felt tangible in the air: tangible enough for Joan to hold in her hands.

For a split second, it was a comfort. For a moment, Joan thought she must be God to give her such a feeling of being understood and cared for. But when the woman gently set the clothes down and only said: "Can I get you anything at all, honey?" Joan knew it was simple human love that blanketed her itching nerves like new snow.

It was the connection between herself and this stranger, this woman who somehow knew her pain.

Joan stared at the woman through her tears. Her name-tag read: Maria. "Water, please?" she croaked.

Maria turned away and filled a plastic cup with cold tap water. Handing it to her, she said: "It'll get better, in time."

Joan met her gaze. "This happened to you too."

Maria smiled slightly, but it was such a sad expression that Joan felt it should have another name. "Yes. And I survived. You will, too." With a slight nod of her head, she started toward the door.

"Wait!" Joan whispered suddenly.

"Yes, honey?"

"Give me like, five minutes to get dressed and then could you, um, send in the boy waiting out there? He'd wearing a toque." Joan stared at her desperately, the sudden need for him seeming to dominate her so completely that her sorrow ebbed very slightly away, obscured.

When Joan was dressed in the jeans her mother had brought and a sweater, Adam walked in, his eyes finding hers faithfully. He came toward her, and then halted a hand's breadth away, as if unsure. "They told me not to come too close," he explained, seeing her confused expression and added, his voice deepening with gravity as though this were a pledge more than a promise: "I won't."

She found this oddly comforting. Though his arms had made her feel protected just a little while ago, she needed some distance between them now. "Okay."

"Okay," he agreed steadily and leaned against the wall opposite, his arms crossing in front of his chest: his hands trembled. He seemed to suck in a breath; his gaze flickered to the floor and then back up to her face as he whispered: "Tell me what to do to make it…tell me what to do."

Joan understood his quiet desperation: when Kevin had been with the doctor's, she'd thought nothing was worse than doing nothing, knowing he was in such pain. "Just be here. Nothing will…" she sighed and the sigh came from somewhere very deep inside her, "nothing's going to make it better but you make me feel like…like it might be, someday." She looked down at her bare feet where they dangled over the edge of the bed. "Does that make sense?"

"Yes," Adam said simply and his calm, earnest sincerity made her believe it, made it easy to believe. Then, inexplicably, he whispered: "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Jane."

She stared at him in confusion, feeling new tears rising in her eyes. The thought alone of him thinking this was his fault, the sick irony of that, the knowledge God had given her—it was all too much. "It's not _your_ fault," she ground out, feeling a sudden anger that _she _had to reassure _him_. Why didn't he just—

"You say that like it's yours." Adam was staring at her, a pained mixture of disbelief and fear in his contradicting, expressive eyes, those eyes that could speak: she remembered why she'd wanted him there. She felt a tear run down her cheek. Adam, registering her silent confirmation that this was what she thought, made a quiet choking noise, shaking his head to deny this vehemently, looking at her all the while with eyes that could break your heart if it wasn't already broken: "Oh, God, no. No, Jane."

These words made her cry in earnest.

"No, Jane." Adam paused, then said: "Jane, if anyone is to blame, it's not you for being beautiful or young, and, and it's not me for not—" he struggled as his voice wavered, "not hearing you right away. It's this place. It's this world, where you, where someone like _you_—" and he broke off, crying with her now, though silently: "someone as innocent and perfect as you are has gone through this. No one deserves this but you, of all people…Jane. God. No."

She looked at him, at his eyes and the pain that was in them and mirrored in hers. "I don't think it was a coincidence. He came after me for a reason, Adam."

Adam stared at her, tears running down his face as he swallowed tightly. She opened her mouth to urge him to believe that she had this on good authority, when he cut her off, almost angrily: "Jane. Listen to me: no one, in their right mind, no one that deserves to live, would ever intentionally seek out to hurt you." He closed his eyes and opened them again, willing her to believe him as he met her gaze again: "He was evil. This was not your fault. Please believe that, Jane."

Joan nodded. She believed. He made it easier somehow, inevitable in a strange way. "Okay," she told him.

Adam nodded, closing his eyes and breathing deep with bittersweet relief.

"I love you," she whispered.

His eyes flew open. For a moment, he seemed unable to speak. Then, his voice hoarse: "I love you too, Jane."

The door opened and Will came in, his cop-frown marring his expression. "Let's go home, sweetheart."


	2. Chapter 2

Title: God Put a Smile upon Your Face

Chapter title: Chris Martin Sings Again

Genre: angst, romance, whatever

Rating: well, PG. Mild violence, some scariness. But I think the Grace/Iris scene makes up for a lot.

A/N: well, this took me forever to update but what can I say? I love one-shots and I hate writing series. I suck at sequels anyway, just read the horrendous He Wrote Don't Forget to see what I mean. But I've gotten a lot of reviews telling me to stop cranking out the new dramatic one-shot stuff and start finishing things I've already started. Speaking of review, thank you all for reading my stuff but most of all REVIEWING it: Jane and Adam, Procrastinationqueen, Basia77, Aaron de L'Encre and Teejay, among others. So here it is, and expect updates at the rate of reviews received…so R&R, people, constructive criticism is fine by me.

The sunlight streamed through the window, jarring Joan from a fitful sleep. For a few seconds, she kept her eyes closed and snuggled up against her pillow—the night before blissfully forgotten. Then, suddenly, from the darkness the image of her attacker came back to her: his evil, gnarled face and she shot up, wide awake and breathing hard. She said the first thing, the first word, the first name that came to mind. "Adam?"

There was a sleepy groan from the floor beside her and she gasped. Heart rising to her throat, she looked over the side of her bed but the boy camped out uncomfortably on the floor wasn't Adam; it was Luke. Joan sighed deeply, suppressing tears and quickly reaching up to rub her still sore temples. "Luke…" she mumbled, "what are you doing down there?"

Her brother half-sat up, reaching for his glasses awkwardly and said: "Mom told me what happened. And since this always used to make you feel better…" he trailed off, somewhat helplessly. It was sweet, in a geeky freak kind of way.

Joan gave weak smile, to seem more okay than she felt. "But it was always Kevin that would do that. After I had a nightmare, to make sure the koalas in hats didn't come back." She yawned, pretending the tears that came to her eyes were from tiredness. Koalas in hats weren't what haunted her dreams these days.

"Well…" Luke looked away, "He can't do that anymore."

Joan looked down at her hands, her lips trembling all of a sudden and she remembered a hundred things from before the accident, the great _before,_ when she didn't know anything about tragedy. Before God came and started dropping by with weird missions and before Adam, and before—last night. She put her head in her hands: she couldn't put what had happened into words yet. Maybe she didn't want to. "Yeah. Thanks, geek."

Luke got up, gathering his blankets and pillow together. "Anytime," he told her and left, wondering what had happened to his family and what they'd done to deserve all the terrible things that kept happening to them—probability-wise, the chances of so many accidents and life-threatening situations occurring in a single family in such a short space of time were incredibly low, weren't they?

He heard Joan sob quietly. As a scientist, Luke didn't believe in luck and he didn't believe in coincidence. Sometimes he wished he did.

Joan found herself scrutinizing her closet warily: jeans and skirts, tops and sweaters, scarves: lots of those. She picked up a scarlet halter-top she'd bought the week before, thinking of how Adam had told her in his spacey, sincere kind of way that she looked pretty in red. Skanky, she condemned the top, and it didn't even really fit.

She realized she was looking for clues: she, like Luke, wondered why she'd been attacked, why she in particular had been targeted. Then she forced herself to remember Adam's sincerity at the hospital, his eyes calling out to her to be all right, the softness in his eyes when he told her so adamantly: it wasn't your fault. "It's not my fault," she said to the red halter-top.

"No, it isn't," the top replied in her mother's voice.

Joan turned and saw her mother, looking tearfully at her, but smiling. "I know it isn't," she assured Helen but all she wanted was for her not to worry—being honest didn't really matter much.

"We could talk about this, Joan," Helen told her with a loving look, a protective, worried expression passing over her face. "I've been through this too." She seemed to choke on these last words.

There was something constricting Joan's throat as she blindly grabbed a skirt and a top that probably matched. She hugged the bundle to her chest, keeping the crying deep inside and pretending not to feel the pain that was so clearly written all across her face. "No, Mom," she said, finally, "I just want to go to school and you know, be _normal_ for a little while."

"You _are_ normal, honey," Helen whispered and a tear went down her cheek, because she knew what it was not to be and really, she knew that Joan wasn't anymore, or wouldn't feel like she was.

And just wait, Helen thought, when the politically correct labels come: rape-victim, rape-survivor, rape whatever, rape, rape, rape. Quickly, she reminded herself that Joan had not been raped. It hadn't gone that far. They'd gotten the bad guy this time… but just wait till she loses it again and then, well, who could blame her? Her girl had gone through hell these past couple of years.

"Yeah," Joan agreed and went quickly past her to the bathroom, wanting to scream and scream and never stop.

_Why?_ The question plagued her as she shakily applied make-up, as she trudged down the stairs, as she ignored her breakfast: _why me?_ It was a miracle she managed not to cry into her cereal, or bang her head against the table or run out to the nearest church, to find God, to get some answers, to punch him. Only one single bit of hope sparked joy into her tired heart and that was Adam.

Adam, Adam: she loved his name.

He loved her. Joan smiled, for the first time in what seemed like years, and it felt weird: like she'd never used those muscles before. Adam loved her. A rush of excitement and hope, tinged with heady anticipation washed over her for a moment: and she loved him. God had given her something to hold onto. It was a promise that hung in the air and kept her from crying.

She remembered God's words from the night before: He said He'd given her the resources. Adam, Joan figured, was her only real resource, along with Luke and Kevin: her mother was freaking out—clearly—and her father had spent all night at the station. He hadn't come home at all.

Adam was what made Joan get up from her place at the kitchen table and Adam was what made her walk determinedly to the door, but when her hand grasped the doorknob, she remembered what it felt like to be trapped with your face pressed to the concrete, vomiting, gasping for breath while someone pulled down your pajama pants and she froze. She couldn't walk alone. Not today.

Helen was on autopilot, running around the kitchen, grabbing things for Joan to bring to school: suddenly overcome with the idea of packing her daughter a lunch. As if a healthy meal could somehow make it okay.

Luke was buried in a book, which, she happened to notice, was upside down and his eyes weren't moving—but Kevin had caught her freezing like that, had seen fear grab her and understanding dawned quickly in his big brother way. "Come on, kid, I'll drive you," he told her and as he passed, Joan thought Kevin hadn't called her 'kid' since she was about twelve. Freaky. And sad, because what happened (what happened, what was done to her, she refused to give it a name) had already changed things.

Luke looked up at her, frowning worriedly.

Joan bit down her on her bottom lip till she tasted blood, because she needed something physical, something real, to distract her from her gnawing emotions. Gratitude to her geeky, stupid, incredibly sweet brothers filled her up till she suddenly remembered that saying, from the bible, she guessed: my cup runneth over.

"Well, what are you waiting for, geek?" Joan asked, her voice a little too high, her eyes a little too wide: "Kevin's giving us a ride."

"What did she give you?" Luke asked from the passenger seat of Kevin's car and Joan glanced down at the brown paper bag, exploring the contents.

"Um, some fried chicken, potato salad, an apple and a…" she shook her head, smiling a little, "…a juice box." She laughed a little; she hadn't had a cranapple juice box since she was seven but her mother had remembered it was her favorite. She laughed but it was low, scratchy and it sounded kind of hysterical.

It was a strange thing. The very morning before they had been in this car, in these exact positions: Kevin driving, Luke in the passenger seat and Joan in the back, miserable. They'd been silent then too, groggy and sleepy, but now they were all three wide awake and the silence was thick with tension, those words unsaid. But it was still eerily similar, giving Joan the spooky feeling that everything was about to happen all over again. All that was really missing was Coldplay.

As if on cue, Luke turned on the radio, probably desperate for something to distract them from the silence that seemed to emphasize the thing they were trying so hard not to talk about. And who else but Coldplay would be on the station, singing gently, singing Joan's misery?

_And I could write a song_

_A hundred miles long_

_Well, that's where I belong_

_And you belong with me_

_And I could write it down_

_And spread it all around_

_Get lost and then get found_

And just like yesterday, the car pulled up in the same parking space right by the school's steps and, just like yesterday, Adam and Iris were on them. Joan looked out, seeing him with relief, with joy. He had his hands on Iris' shoulders but obviously that meant nothing, not after yesterday, it just couldn't and then Iris leaned forward—

_Or swallowed in the sea…_

and she kissed Adam right on the lips, like it was the most natural, normal thing in the world. Like she hadn't just taken the last shred of hope Joan had, like she hadn't stomped all over her broken heart and spit on her soul.

In one fell swoop, Iris' action brought back the pain that had been muffled at the sight of Adam and Joan's demons were breathing at her neck, hissing: she remembered the weight of her attacker's body, his stench, his hands and she remembered footsteps, she remembered Coldplay, she remembered thinking she was going to be raped and killed and Adam would never know…how she felt…

Joan stared at her hands that shook like trembling leaves in the wind.

_You cut me down to size_

_And opened up my eyes_

_Made me realize_

_What I could not see_

But she'd told him later that she loved him, at the hospital and gloriously, magically, he'd said it back. And now…but Joan could not look back up at the happy couple, not while her insides churned and withered. Oh, God.

"Joan?" Kevin had half-turned in his seat, watching his sister tear up. Luke glanced at him and they exchanged a short, slightly frantic look.

"Should I tell Lishek you're gonna be a little late?" Luke asked. Kevin punched him in the arm and Luke glared at him, rubbing the sore spot and then looked back to his sister.

"I'll drive you home," said Kevin, as if the matter had already been settled.

Joan looked up from her hands, out the window for one more painful glimpse, but both Adam and Iris had disappeared. Maybe they'd never been there, maybe her mind was playing tricks on her because he wouldn't do that to her, would he? He couldn't. Could he? Not Adam, not Adam who'd held her and begged for her to be okay, just last night. Not Adam.

But eyes didn't lie.

Kevin, interpreting her silence as acquiescence, turned the engine on. Joan felt the vibration of it travel up her spine. The drawing, which this morning had seemed unimportant in comparison to everything else, loomed up in her mind: that terrible likeness to her. He was still punishing her, he was still angry about Ascension.

There were so many things that she didn't know. Why she'd been attacked, who her attacker was, if God wanted her to find out, if she could ever look her mother in the eyes again… But this—this she could figure out. Adam was right there in the building, with all the answers to her questions. She'd be damned if she'd sit back and wonder when she could simply find out, not when there were so many mysteries already. Screw everything else, how dare he? How dare he tell her he loved her and then let Iris kiss him like that?

Joan opened the car door while it was still in motion and Kevin slammed on the breaks, his head snapping back to stare at her: "What the hell, Joan! You could've been—"

But she slammed the door shut on his answer and ran up the steps, her shoulder bag bumping against her side in her hurry. Her heart pounded in her chest. She heard Luke exiting the car behind her, running to catch up to her and she broke into a dead run.

She reached Chemistry class a full minute before Luke. Slightly out of breath, she leaned her head against the door for a moment and when she felt semi-recovered, she went in, eyes bright and determined. Absently, she apologized for her lateness with a quick, "Bus broke down," because her real excuse was very long and very private and she ignored Lishek's irritable response.

Amazingly, she got away with that.

She sat down between Adam and Grace, but she ignored the latter, turning directly to Adam. Joan opened her mouth to demand an explanation and was struck silent.

Adam was gazing at her, his mouth very slightly open, as he took her in with sheer adoration glowing from those eyes: those eyes that seemed to gain a simple pleasure just from her presence beside him and when he looked down at her mouth and bit his lip longingly, she didn't think she was capable of breathing, let alone speaking.

Then he broke the spell. His eyes flickered back up to hers, his eyes darkening with soft worry: "I didn't think you'd come," he whispered, "Are you okay?"

Scowling, Joan looked away, finding herself unable to be angry while looking at his face and she needed to be angry. If she confronted him while looking into his eyes, she'd cry and she wanted to yell and scream and shake him.

Luke suddenly appeared in the doorway, breathless and red. The class tittered and Lishek turned to him, quizzically: "Mr. Girardi, I'd hate to mark you down as tardy after such a supremely clean record…do you have an excuse?"

Luke paused, looking at Joan, who gave him a slightly threatening look. Adam looked from one to the other, his confusion heightening to distress. Grace sat back in her chair, slightly confused herself: it was rare that Girardi managed to look more irrationally angry than she did.

"I don't have an excuse, per se, or at least not one that I'm at liberty to…um," he glanced at Joan, who now looked murderous, though this had nothing to do with him, "…divulge."

Lishek nodded curtly. "Then I have no choice than to put a stain on your record, Mr. Girardi, what a shame." She waved her hand dismissively.

Luke went and sat down, frowning and Grace leaned toward him, since both Joan and Adam seemed totally engrossed with each other, in one mysterious way or another: "Hey! Atom Boy, what's up with everybody? I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone."

Luke just shook his head, looking bitter that he was passing up an opportunity to speak to Grace, when for once; she wanted to speak to him. But this wasn't his secret to tell.

Adam leaned into Joan: his breath tickled her ear and made her shiver pleasantly. "Please, Jane…tell me what's going on." His voice was thick with fear, wondering what could possibly make her seem worse this morning than when he'd left her at the hospital.

She looked at him and found he was no more than an inch away. Her eyes filled unexpectedly with tears. With a sudden sick wave of memory, she remembered being rolled off the sidewalk, remembered the taste of vomit and nearly choking on it. The sound of the man's raspy breaths and his erection pressed against her.

With cruel vividness, she remembered being helpless and alone until he, Adam appeared like an angel in the dark. His arms around her had held her tightly and as long as he'd been there, she felt as if her soul was still in place.

"Adam…" she whispered, feeling a tear roll down her cheek with that name she held so sacred.

His eyes widened, his mouth quivered and when his lips parted, she thought he would make an excuse, explain Iris away and she wondered if she'd believe him, if she could afford not to with everything else.

Instead, he closed the small distance between their lips and he kissed her, nipping at her lips till they opened as if of their own volition. A shock of pleasure went through her when his tongue entered her mouth. She felt his hand cup her face and she couldn't breathe as they kissed hungrily; both desperately seeking answers, both more in love than they could bear.

"Excuse me! Mr. Rove and Miss Girardi, while I too find the process of osmosis to be extremely erotic," Lishek said matter-of-factly, "I won't stand for this. Watch the PDA's in class, okay, kids?" And with a sarcastic little laugh, she added: "We wouldn't want to be separated, would we?"

Joan looked catatonic, completely thrown off by the kiss, and Adam shook his head, dark eyes on his Jane. "No," he said, clearly barely hearing the question.

Fortunately, the bell rang.

Joan walked out, still in tears, with Adam at her heels and Grace, though she hesitated, decided against following them. Instead, she approached Iris in the hall a few minutes later, wondering somewhat devilishly if there was any way she could find an excuse to mention Adam kissing Joan in the middle of Chemistry.

She leaned against the wall of lockers beside her and Iris glowered. Grace smirked: that was all the reason she needed.

"So…did you and Rove break up?" Grace sounded bored by her own question, let alone Iris' answer. But secretly she hoped they'd seen the last of the clingy, whiney Cousin It.

"No, we didn't 'break up'." Iris made quotation marks in the air and Grace deftly resisted the urge to punch her, "I _dumped_ him."

"Ah. Well, see you around," Grace said with as close as she got to a smile and started to walk away, when Iris called after her, sounding squeakier than usual.

"Hey…um, could you tell Adam that I'm like, totally okay with getting back together if he's into it?" She blinked twice, Bambi-like.

Ew.

Grace cocked her head to the side in mock-contemplation of this. "Hmm…I don't know, I. When Adam kissed Joan in the middle of Chemistry he seemed kind of preoccupied. But I'll let him know." With that, she turned on her heel and started toward English.

The look on Iris' face was priceless.

Meanwhile, Joan was crying.

Adam always hated it when she did that. Even when they were tears of happiness, just seeing her, wracked with an emotion that seemed to take her hostage, made Adam want to cry with her, or take away the pain, by feeling it twice as badly himself: seeing her crying and not knowing why was even worse. He didn't know what he was up against.

"Please, Jane…" he dropped to his knees beside her, where she sat on the steps outside school, her quiet sad gasps coming out in frosty clouds. "Don't cry, just… what do you need me to do?"

Joan looked at him, her eyes shiny and gleaming with accusation. "Are you still mad about me destroying your art?"

Adam's eyes widened disbelievingly, "No, no." He frowned, shaking his head and staring at her, "I forgave you for that."

She sobbed. "You're lying," she hiccupped, "you drew a picture of me with the folding chair _a few days ago_!"

Adam sat down beside her, his body seeming to give out. He put his head in hands. "Jane…"

"What?" she whispered, because her sorrows drowned out her anger pretty easily. He looked so miserable there beside her, with his head down like that, suffering her sufferings.

"Jane," He looked up, took her hands in his, threading his fingers through hers, "I didn't draw that picture. After sixth period Art, Iris started talking about how I…" he avoided her eyes but tightened his grip on her hand, "how I'm always staring at you and stuff. And I couldn't really…I couldn't deny anything, it was all true."

Joan leaned toward him, tasting his breath where it came out like a wisp of white mist in the cold air, "Adam, you…" she started to say.

"Shh," he whispered and put his forehead to hers, eyes closing. He sighed and she bit her lip, closing her eyes too, relishing the contact, a little overcome. Then he broke from her a little and his eyes were open as he said, softly, "I've been teaching Iris how to improve her sketching and she showed me…" his mouth twisted in remembered anger, "the one you mean. She threw it in my face. When what happened at the art show was…" Adam's eyes were so bright, so full, they were a caress on her skin, "It was between us," he finished.

Joan nodded, her forehead brushing his.

"She dumped me." His face broke into a smile.

"But you kissed her…" she whispered, eyeing his lips. "Today, on the steps, here."

Adam sighed, disentangling his hands from hers and cupping her face as he promised with eyes that didn't lie: "I didn't kiss her. She kissed me. I pushed her away, didn't you see that?"

Joan shrugged, tears running down her face, smiling. "Then you do…"

Adam nodded immediately, earnestly. "And you…" he gazed watchfully into her eyes.

"Yeah." She smiled lopsidedly.

A tremor went through him and with Adam so close, Joan could feel it herself. She closed her eyes, still smiling, all her pain and fear at bay for just one moment. For just one moment, the attack was far away, it never happened.

Adam leaned in carefully, almost with trepidation, as if he expected her to draw away. "Jane…" It was a sigh and his eyes were screaming all those contradicting things, confusion and longing, desire and fear, love and desperate, terrified hope. They brimmed in the hazel of his eyes and when she kissed him, he closed them, his heart hammering, his head light, his body trembling.

And when the kiss was the best they'd ever had—lip-to-lip, desperate and hungry and happy and filled with longing and life and promises unspoken—they weren't surprised. After all, she was Joan and he was Adam.

It was always meant to be this way.

At home that afternoon, Joan lay on the couch, a mess of emotion. She was still afraid, still sick with her doubts. But her heart was slowly mending. It wouldn't be very long before she'd be able to sleep without dreaming the attack or feel someone behind her and not feel terrified.

Today, she still felt the man just in the back of her mind and the demons at her heels, but she felt pretty sure that she would outrun them eventually. If not now, then soon or someday, with Adam.

The front door slammed open and Joan bolted upright. "Daddy?" she called, thinking she recognized his heavy footsteps among those she heard.

Then there was a crash in the hall and she heard a quiet, almost inaudible cry. Stiffening, Joan listened for a moment and hearing a suspicious silence, she picked up a phone, prepared to dial 911…

The line was dead. Her cell phone was at school, in her locker.

"Joan!" she heard her father yell, "just go up—" but he was cut off by another scuffle of movement, another sudden crash followed by that same soft cry and now she recognized it as her mother's.

A weird thing happened.

Joan went on autopilot, knowing three things only: her parents were in some kind of danger to the extent that her father sounded scared for her (definitely a bad sign) there was a man out there in the world who wanted to hurt her, her specifically, and she knew where her father kept his spare gun, the one he thought no one knew about.

Rising up quickly but silently, Joan padded from her place on the living room couch to the kitchen and reached into the back of a cupboard where she retrieved a gun and then made her way back to the couch, clicking the safety off and crouching behind it: all this she did in silence, in just a few moments.

Then something occurred to her and she stood back up, trembling head to foot but with a simple, straight-forward idea in her head: hurt the guy before he hurt them.

"I'm going upstairs, Dad, do you want something?" she called back and her voice sounded pleasant and cheerful. It was an ordinary, casual voice but anyone that knew Joan at all would know that something had to be up—Joan was a lot of things, but cheerful wasn't one of them.

Shaking, she pressed her back to the wall behind the door to the hall, holding up the gun and remembering when she'd first been taught to use it, at twelve: how disgusted she'd been when her uncle, a smiling Southerner who wanted to bring his moody niece out of her shell, had taken her out shooting…how completely sickened she'd been when she turned out to be a good shot and ended up killing a doe that looked just like Bambi. She'd cried three nights straight.

Joan sucked in a hissing breath and listened, feel panic slam out a beat in her chest.

"Honey…?" her father sounded strange too, pleasant but uncharacteristically so, and he emerged from the hall and was framed in the doorway, his eyes searching frantically for her. Joan had a feeling there was a gun pointed at his back. He didn't see her where she was hiding right beside him, armed and ready.

She motioned with her gun and he glanced at her from the corner of his eye without moving his head: his expression froze when he saw the gun she held in trembling hands.

His hands jerked a little toward her and she understood him: he wanted her to give him the gun. She reached slightly forward, her arm shaking so hard that she nearly lost her grip on it, her hand slippery with sweat, her mind screamed: _quick, quick, before it's too late, before we run out of time and we're all dead. _

Music drifted into the room from outside. It was Coldplay. The song was familiar; one that Luke had played again and again, one of the few Coldplay songs she knew word for word.

_Come on, oh my star is fading  
I swerve out of control  
If I'd, if I'd only waited  
I'd not be stuck here in this hole…_

Joan hesitated. Somehow, she knew not to hand her father the gun. She couldn't be sure it was God speaking through Coldplay, or if the song meant for her not to give him the gun, that they still had time: she only knew what her instincts told her, and what faith whispered in her ear.

So she shook her head at Will, just once. He understood, his eyes widening in panic as he saw his daughter deny him what was, in his eyes, his only way out of the situation.

There was a low, evil whisper from behind him somewhere and the sound of it nearly made Joan's legs give out from under her: "Call her again," said the whisper and she knew it, she recognized it from the obscenities he'd shouted when the police had restrained him the night before.

He was back. He'd escaped.

The doorbell rang. When no one answered, it rang again. Joan suppressed a sob, pressing her lips together. There was a pause, and then an uncertain knock.

"Jane? It's me, Adam."

A/N: oooh, cliffhanger. Review if you want another installment, review lots if you want it soon…mwhahahahaha. Ahem.

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